Bombshell: New study confirms 'solar activity has a direct impact on Earth's cloud cover' important to climate change

The solar eruptions are known to shield Earth's atmosphere from cosmic rays. However the new study, published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, shows that the global cloud cover is simultaneously reduced, supporting the idea that cosmic rays are important for cloud formation. The eruptions cause a reduction in cloud fraction of about 2 percent corresponding to roughly a billion tonnes of liquid water disappearing from the atmosphere.

"The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover. Clouds are the Earth’s sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming — or global cooling."

Solar variations affect the abundance of clouds in our atmosphere, a new study suggests. Large eruptions on the surface of the Sun can temporarily shield Earth from so-called cosmic rays which now appear to affect cloud formation.

A team of scientists from the National Space Institute at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU Space) and the Racah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has linked large solar eruptions to changes in Earth's cloud cover in a study based on over 25 years of satellite observations.

The solar eruptions are known to shield Earth's atmosphere from cosmic rays. However the new study, published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, shows that the global cloud cover is simultaneously reduced, supporting the idea that cosmic rays are important for cloud formation. The eruptions cause a reduction in cloud fraction of about 2 percent corresponding to roughly a billion tonnes of liquid water disappearing from the atmosphere.

Since clouds are known to affect global temperatures on longer timescales, the present investigation represents an important step in the understanding of clouds and climate variability.

"Earth is under constant bombardment by particles from space called galactic cosmic rays. Violent eruptions at the Sun's surface can blow these cosmic rays away from Earth for about a week. Our study has shown that when the cosmic rays are reduced in this way there is a corresponding reduction in Earth's cloud cover. Since clouds are an important factor in controlling the temperature on Earth our results may have implications for climate change," explains lead author on the study Jacob Svensmark of DTU.

Very energetic particles

These particles generate electrically charged molecules -- ions -- in Earth's atmosphere. Ions have been shown in the laboratory to enhance the formation of aerosols, which can serve as seeds for the formation of the cloud drops that make up a cloud. Whether this actually happens in the atmosphere, or only in the laboratory is a topic that has been investigated and debated for years.

When the large solar eruptions blow away the galactic cosmic rays before they reach Earth they cause a reduction in atmospheric ions of up to about 20 to -30 percent over the course of a week. So if ions affect cloud formation it should be possible to observe a decrease in cloud cover during events when the Sun blows away cosmic rays, and this is precisely what is done in this study.

The so-called 'Forbush decreases' of the cosmic rays have previously been linked to week-long changes in Earth's cloud cover but the effect has been debated at length in the scientific literature. The new study concludes that "there is a real impact of Forbush decreases on cloud microphysics" and that the results support the suggestion that "ions play a significant role in the life-cycle of clouds."

Arriving at that conclusion was, however, a hard endeavor; Very few strong Forbush decreases occur and their effect on cloud formation is expected to be close to the limit of detection using global atmospheric observations measured by satellites and land based stations. Therefore it was of the greatest importance to select the strongest events for study since they had to have the most easily detected effect. Determining this strength required combining data from about 130 stations in combination with atmospheric modeling.

This new method resulted in a list of 26 events in the period of 1987-2007 ranked according to ionization. This ranked list was important for the detection of a signal, and may also shed some light on why previous studies have arrived at varied conclusions, since they have relied on events that were not necessarily ranked high on the list.

Possible long term effect

The effect from Forbush decreases on clouds is too brief to have any impact on long-term temperature changes.

However since clouds are affected by short term changes in galactic cosmic radiation, they may well also be affected by the slower change in Solar activity that happens on scales from tens to hundreds of years, and thus play a role in the radiation budget that determines the global temperature.

The Suns contribution to past and future climate change may thus be larger than merely the direct changes in radiation, concludes the scientists behind the new study.

10 comments:

I believe it. Makes sense. I always wondered why people attribute climate change to CO2 while when you burn fuel oil you produce two moles of H2O for every mole of CO2, but then what would they publish?

@IanSo that's supposed to be relevant? Oh yes, of course... WOW! Scary stuff: 18lbs of CO2 OH NO! The sky is going to fall down very soon... QUICK! SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING NOW and leave it off FOREVER! STOP using 'big oil' and 'big coal' to provide the advanced civilization we all enjoy (including lefty alarmist hypocrites)... The toxic, DANGEROUS CO2 emissions from those EVIL DEMONIC energy sources are all contributing to killing the planet!

Ian, if you're so concerned about the ridiculous, false prophecies of human induced global warming, here's what you and the rest of your indoctrinated followers MUST do ASAP:Go and live in your clean, green fossil-fuel free utopia - don't contribute any more CO2 yourself. While you are living in a house powered with electricity provided by the local grid and driving a car; AND using a computer and the Internet to make stupid comments that mean nothing other than to enforce the insane CAGW narrative, you're a nothing but a big HYPOCRITE. Alarmist loonies...

Svensmark is another scientist that constructs experiments to prove his point and does not just mouth an unproven hypothesis.“Svensmark: Evidence continues to build that the Sun drives climate, not CO2″Prof. Dr. Henrik Svensmark, Center for Sun-Climate Research des Danish National Space Institutehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxstzCXSMH0&feature=player_embedded#!

Solar activity WILL influence the climate on earth, the question if that happens via cloud formation remains somewhat doubtfull. One very strong fact in pointing out the irrelevance of CO2 on climate is the observed global warming on mars (and a couple of other objects throughout the solar system).

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0442%282001%29014%3C2976%3APBOTES%3E2.0.CO%3B2"AbstractA global-mean model is used here to elucidate possible bounds on the surface temperature of a simplified ocean–atmosphere system. Extending previous one-dimensional models, it has included as internal variables the low-level and high-level cloud covers and the turbulent wind at the surface. The main hypothesis for the model closure is that the conversion rate from the solar to the kinetic energy—or, equivalently, the rate of internal entropy production—is maximized, which has been applied with considerable success in past latitudinal models. From the model derivation, it is found that the surface temperature is narrowly bounded below by the onset of the greenhouse effect and above by the rapid increase of the saturation vapor pressure. Because both are largely intrinsic properties of water, the resulting surface temperature is mostly insensitive to detailed balances or changing external conditions. Even with a 50% change of the solar constant from its present-day value, the model temperature has varied by only about 10 K. The reason that the heat balances can be maintained is an internal adjustment of the low cloud cover, which offsets the solar effect. The model offers a plausible explanation of an equable climate in the geological past so long as there is a substantial ocean."

This is a very interesting paper! I just received a PDF from the Dr. Svensmark. Finally, we have a long-term confirmation going back 20 years that solar activity through its effect on GCR indeed impacts Earth's cloud albedo. I believe this is the driver of climatic changes operating on a 'human' time scale, i.e. decades to centuries. However, I think that this mechanism has a limited ability to impact Earth's temperature. Because of negative feedbacks operating in the climate system, Sun-induced changes in cloud albedo can only cause plus-minus 0.7 C change in global temperature, or an amplitude of no more than 1.5 C. .. Temperature changes beyond that require a completely different mechanism ...